I’d Probably Still Be In Prison

Greater Egg Harbor Regional High School District Superintendent, Steve Ciccariello, said that his teacher saw hand-drawn pictures of what appeared to be weapons in his notebook.

What was this Weapon of Mass Destruction this budding felon drew? What was the awesome slaying machine he was no doubt designing when he was supposed to be learning to conjugate verbs?

Why it was a glove. With flames coming out of it. I shite you not.

Back when I was in Junior High School and even High School, I drew stuff that would have had the dainty teacher soiling her armor, uh underwear.

P-38 Lightnings, P-51 Mustangs, various machine guns, and PT boats. Lot’s of PT boats, because I liked them. PT boats launching torpedoes and with guns ablazing. Take that you Sons of Nippon! Tanks too, all the better to crush the Nazi menace. Just about every boy my age did that, some more than others. Amazingly, nothing ever happened and none of us ever got arrested. Back then people in the public schools had some common sense and boys were allowed to be boys.

Investigators from the department and the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office went to the 16-year-old boy’s residence on East Spencer Lane and found several items, including electronic parts and several types of chemicals that when mixed together could cause an explosion, police said. The student was charged with possession of a weapon, an explosive device, and was placed in Harborfields Detention Center, police said.

You know, stuff a kid at a tech centric school might have at home.

Moran said the family and the student cooperated with the department during the investigation.

Their first, but understandable, mistake was thinking that they were dealing with rational adults. I can see their thinking, but next time they’ll know that if the police want to have a chat with you to help “clear something up”, then there are two things you should immediately do,

1) Shut up. Really, never volunteer information, because that friendly chat can become a not so friendly interrogation in a heart beat.
2) Lawyer up. A few grand spent up front will save you a lot of grief and even more money down the road.

Oh, and if the police ask if they can “have a look around”, the only correct answer is “Absolutely, once you come back with a “Warrant issued upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” See Mapp v Ohio for further details.

This sounds serious, doesn’t it? I mean this kid could be plotting to blow up the school. Why would a kid of this age have electronic parts and several types of chemicals in his house if not to make a bomb?

This might provide some insight,

Cedar Creek opened in September 2010 as a magnet school with programs focusing on engineering and environmental sciences and specializing in hands-on learning.

Oh, that. Obviously a kid going to a tech centric school should not under any circumstances be curious or want to learn outside of the structured confines of approved public school buildings. Why, he might discover something on his own! We can’t have that.

So, let’s recap here. Teacher sees kid’s drawing of glove with flames coming out of it. Teacher wets herself and then runs to Principal. Principal poops his panties and calls the police. Police come and talk to the kid, who answers truthfully. The police then arrest the kid and he ends up in the county youth detention facility. Where he will no doubt get an education of the type his parents don’t want him to have.

Police Chief Pat Moran stressed Tuesday night no threats were made by the student and there was no indication there was any danger posed to anyone or property at the school.

“There was no indication he was making a bomb, or using a bomb or detonating a bomb,” he said.

So, what the fuck was he arrested for, Chief? Oh, they trumped up a charge of possessing an explosive device and arrested him. Nice work there Inspector Clouseau. Barney Fife would be so proud of you. We used to laugh at ole Barn, but now he seems to be a role model for many detectives.

The Chief should correct the spelling of his last name by replacing the “a” with the correct “o”. Truth in advertising, you know. Cheap shot? Yeah, but mostly those are the best kind.

Read the last few paragraphs to see examples of other public official idiocy in New Jersey public schools.

I’m not big on lawsuits, but I hope that the family gets the most vicious attorney they can find and sues the shit out of the school, the town, and the individuals involved in this farce. I’m serious. if the people who are responsible for this travesty are held personally financially responsible, others in public office will think twice before arresting high school kids for, well for nothing.

I’m sure the “What if…” chorus will be chiming in with the horrible prospect of this kid actually doing something. There is always a threat of that, but it seems for the most part these people exhibit signs well before they act that they are not quite right in the head. This young man did none of that and the police even admit that there was no threat. So, the arrest was mere ass covering on their part.

We have a choice to make in this country. We can retain our civil rights and run the risk that there will be occasional danger. Or we can cede our hard won rights and liberties to an increasingly voracious security apparatus that will provide us with neither liberty nor safety and subject us to abuses such as this ever more frequently.

Comments

I didn’t draw many PT boats. My drawings were subs, destroyers, and F4 Phantoms. With the occasional tank, but lots of half-tracks (loved those .50 cals). Even in 1965, my teachers thought I was ‘touched’. I guess today I would be exiled.

I was firmly rooted in WW II at that time, so the Phantom was way too new for me. Of course back then the only time the teachers were interested in our notebooks was if they thought we were cheating on an exam. Submarines? To a kid with a good imagination a Yellow #2 pencil was a really good submarine. Or a really good rocket.

My Dad got some slide on pocket clips for my pencils (well, they were his pencils that he used at work but I re-allocated them). The pocket clip could serve as the sub conning tower or the cockpit of the F4. Don’t know why I was stuck on the F4, since I was sort of fixated on WW II, as well. My teachers always got mad at me because I would not read the ‘normal’ stuff, like Bambi, May Poppins, and other stuff, rather, I wanted to read about Iwo Jima, Midway, and Normandy.

My second grade teacher actually confiscated my notebook and called a parent-teacher-principal conference. Mind you, this was in 1966, when “Combat!” was on TV.

Speaking of Combat!, it’s on one of the local oldies TV stations a 0300. That’s followed by “12 O’Clock High”. It seems like every episode Piccadilly Lily got shot down. I think it would have shortened the war by at least a year if they had made Col. Gallagher stay in England.

My reading list was much like yours. Day of Infamy, Miracle at Midway, The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, and others that I can’t remember now were on my reading list at a fairly young age. I still read that sort of thing to this day. Even better, my son has inherited my love of history.

I don’t think that they actually had anything, but panicked and felt the need to do “something”. In this case the “something” was stupid and should cost the individuals plenty. Sadly, things being the way they are, it will likely be the taxpayers who pay for this. As I’m sure you’re aware, a charge like this can follow this young man around for the rest of his life. What would his chances be of getting a security clearance to work on sensitive projects if this thing sticks? Not good, I’d wager.

I was always eclectic…WWII dogfights, tank battles, or subs sinking enemy battleships one day, F4s doing Napalm runs the next, and F102s (the one’s my dad was crew chief of back in the early/exciting part of the cold war) going after Soviet bombers the next.

Big in later elementary and Junior high (not quite as much in High School). Flounder is caught doing it in Animal House (sometimes it was fun to draw and narrate the battles simultaneously).

As for chemicals to make explosives…that makes pretty much every household in America. As a youth finding out that my step-dad’s 1970s “Style” hairspray made an awesome flamethrower (I knew what my home defense weapon was of the day!). We used to mix up stuff, set it on fire, blow it up or otherwise monkey with it. We were fortunate enough to open the windows and clear out the neighbor kid’s basement after we accidentally mixed up cyanide. Bleach and something from one of our chemistry sets.

Of course, we also made “polish cannons” out of duct-taped beer cans (tops and bottoms removed except the bottom one. Fill bottom with lighter fluid, drop in a tennis ball and touch it off. For more excitement (read Incendiaries), douse the tennis ball with lighter fluid first, then shoot at your friends across the street.

And yet none of us wound up doing any of the crap that these yahoos worry about.

All About Me

After a long career as a field EMS provider, I'm now doing all that back office stuff I used to laugh at. Life is full of ironies, isn't it?
I still live in the Northeast corner of the United States, although I hope to change that to another part of the country more in tune with my values and beliefs.
I still write about EMS, but I'm adding more and more non EMS subject matter.
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